Activists to picket Parliament over women's quota in elections law

AMMAN — A civil society coalition plans to organise a sit-in in front of Parliament to demand a seat for women in each of the constituencies that will be designated in the 2015 draft elections law.

The campaign aims at increasing the percentage of women MPs to 17 per cent from the draft law's 12 per cent quota, the campaign's organisers said.

“The idea is to hold this sit-in to demand more representation for women under the Dome,” said Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) Secretary General Salma Nims.

She added that the coalition is waiting for the governor’s approval to hold their demonstration “once the MPs start discussion of the bill”.

Paragraph A of Article 8 of the elections bill reads: “The Kingdom is to be divided by a by-law into electoral districts for which 130 parliamentary seats will be allocated.”

In the government’s version of the draft law, the number of Lower House members was reduced to 130 from the current 150. The women’s quota of 15 seats remained the same.

Nims told The Jordan Times that the civil society coalition held an emergency meeting last Thursday at the JNCW premises to discuss the next step before the draft bill is discussed by the MPs.

She said other actions to be taken by the coalition aside from the sit-in include attending the discussion from the gallery in Parliament.

“We will have members go to each session holding banners that reflect our demands,” Nims explained.

The coalition members will also lobby the deputies and the committees at the Upper House of Parliament to garner more support for their proposals, according to a statement by the JNCW that was made available to the press on Saturday.

As the draft law stands now, there is only one woman MP each from Amman, Zarqa and Irbid, which are the three most populous governorates in Jordan.

The coalition had launched a campaign in December involving women leaders, activists, journalists, artists and public figures from the Kingdom's 12 governorates to support the demand of a seat for women in each of the constituencies.

Nims reiterated her past remarks that “the government disappointed the women’s movement because it committed to ensuring 20 per cent representation for women in Parliament by the year 2017”.